


number nine (pick the time and place for action)

by sibylvane



Series: the moscow rules [1]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Development, Character Study, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Implied/Referenced Torture, Red Room (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:54:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22115212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sibylvane/pseuds/sibylvane
Summary: At some point, she ceases to be a little girl, and turns into a fully fledged weapon, ready for someone to pull the trigger whenever needed.The Red Room, between 1927 and 1946.
Relationships: Dottie Underwood/Original Female Character(s)
Series: the moscow rules [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1591852
Kudos: 17





	number nine (pick the time and place for action)

The year had just changed from the cold and unforgiving 1926 to 1927 when a baby girl was born in a decrepit apartment in one of the poorest parts of Nizhny Novgorod.

Three and a half days later, she was ripped away from the arms of her crying mother. Her father, who fought desperately to get their child back, was knocked down by Leviathan’s soldiers - never to fully recover from his injuries. Neither of the parents would ever see their child again, and they would be nothing more than the distant memory of a warm touch to the cold woman their daughter grew up to be, stripped away of her name and identity. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

The little girl doesn’t know anything but the base in Belarus. They tell her that her real mother and father didn’t care about their child, that they didn’t see how _special_ she was, and gave her away to better serve the homeland. She never questions them, and never asks about her family after her pre-teen years. She knows all of the building’s rooms like her own pocket, however, except the ones in the cellar and the superior’s quarters, recognises every little crack in the wall. It’s not safe, it’s not a place where she is comfortable (relaxed equals vulnerable, they tell her), but it’s the closest to _home_ she ever gets.

They tell her that her name is ‘Doroteya’, god’s gift. She knows deep down that it is not her real name; it feels like a shoe perhaps two sizes too big, like something she has yet to grow into, but she embraces it. Her name inside the walls of the academy is Doroteya Isayeva, but she is also Marya, Katerina, Zima, Elma or Ida when she is on the field with the other girls, stealing and tricking and killing ruthlessly. _At some point, she ceases to be a little girl, and turns into a fully fledged weapon, ready for someone to pull the trigger whenever needed._

The Red Room girls do not feel mercy. They do not feel pain. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

They teach her detachment, how to build up things only to destroy them efficiently. They tell her that you must break beautiful things, and you must not hesitate. A good girl must learn to let go of that which is not meant for her. By the age of nine, she knows five different ways to snap a man’s neck and fourteen ways to ensure a silent demise.

They do not feel love. They do not feel. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Attachment was something completely taboo. Attachment was weakness, and the instructors told them many times that they would not survive long outside the training facility if they valued someone else’s life above the mission.

Still, the seventeen girls took care of each other.

Aglaya complimented her after she’d shot her first bullseye.

Evdokiya and Yuliana taught her how to cheat in card games and hide a weapon as big as a kitchen knife or a pistol inside her skirt.

Larissa, who told her how to disconnect her mind and make the pain of the things that the instructors demanded from her (more than often, sex) go away.

Roksana helped her when she struggled with her english pronunciation, and Naida told her where the forgotten door to the kitchen was and when the hallway outside was empty.

Yevgeniya even helped her bandage her feet one night after a nasty slip at the daily ballet session, despite being the oldest.

However, Doroteya only ever knew two people that she’d call her real friends during her time with Leviathan - Anya Antonova being the first. She has the bed next to Doroteya’s, and they grow up together, exchanging secretive glances and hidden smiles.

Anya, who had hair which looked gold when the sun shone through the thick windows and a light in her eyes that somehow had managed to stay intact through their tough upbringing. They used to play secret games, to see which one of them that could snatch the biggest piece of bread from the kitchen or to do the most pirouettes or land the most punches. They attempt to make their situation a little more humane, childlike - and they succeed, partly, in creating a little secret bubble where they can be happy despite the harsh reality and brainwashing. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

It’s all fun and games until she snaps Anya’s neck. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

At fifteen, she meets her second friend - the Red Room’s newest recruit, Tatiana Anatolyevna, who’s sixteen and from Saint Petersburg, and much older than the usual newcomers. She volunteered on her own, they tell Doroteya, more than willing to do her patriotic duty and support the motherland during these harsh times.

Tatiana has soft, dark hair, warm chestnut eyes and a smirk that says _I know more about you thank you do_ , and she is the most beautiful thing that Doroteya has ever seen.

Tatia gets the bed next to hers, which has been just as cold as Doroteya’s heart for the last five years - and it’s like a dam has broken inside the young girl.

She teaches Tatiana everything that she’s learned during her life in the facility so that she does not fall behind, and despite the circumstances and Doroteya’s reluctance to pour her heart into a friendship, they soon become inseparable.

They kiss for the first time on the one year anniversary of Tatia’s arrival, and Doroteya allows herself, for a brief moment, to feel whole again. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

After three years in the Red Room, Tatia starts to become more hesitant to the ideas of the Red Room. She starts to note the cracks in the facade, how the handlers uses the girls without a second thought - of course she wants to serve the motherland, she tells Doroteya, but she is no longer sure that this is the right way. Despite the brainwashing, she still remembers a world outside the room, a world that might be harsh and unforgiving but free, at least. She starts to talk about running away together, away from this pain and oppression. Doroteya does not understand what she’s talking about - unlike Tatia, she doesn’t know a world outside the Red Room, outside of killing and tricking and dancing till your feet bleed. They have increasingly frequent fights, rushed and silent between ballet practice until one day, Doroteya has had enough and reports her to their superiors.

Tatiana slams Doroteya into a wall during a lesson in hand-to-hand combat that day, before she is asked to have a word with the handlers.

Doroteya promises to stop caring for real after they tell her that Tatia had put a bullet in her mouth. She doesn’t believe them, but now that she knows what they do to dropouts she keeps her own mouth tightly shut and blinks away the wetness threatening behind her eyelids.

She swears never to let down her guard again. She trains harder than ever before, eagerly assisting the brainwashing in stripping away the small shreds of remorse and conflict that she has left. She swears to become the best assassin to ever come out of the Red Room. and she succeeds (until a certain Natalia Romanova, but that’s a whole other story).

Her graduation comes as a twisted sort of relief, to finally get to cut off some of the many strings holding her down. She doesn’t spare the consequences of her ending ceremony much thought - she knows that she will never be a good mother, anyway.

(It's not like she’d ever want to, but she knows that even if that wasn’t the case she’d never be able to handle a child - she’s never been nurturing, and she has seen way too many hurt children to ever be able to take care of one herself. Maybe this is for the best, after all. A child would just slow her down)

She is given her first real mission, in the United States, nonetheless. She uses her new alias, Ida Emke, to seduce yet another vain man before switching to the persona of a doe eyed Iowa girl; something that despite being as far away from her real background as possible, feels more comfortable than anything she’s experienced this far.

She discovers that the name Doroteya (or Dorothy, as she tells the landlady in New York), no longer feels like a burden too big for her shoulders - but instead like one of those beautiful necklaces the Madame used to wear around her neck or like a perfectly balanced gun in her hand.

It feels _right_ , at last. Like she’s earned it.

FIN.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this one-shot about a year and a half ago. Back then, I had just finished agent carter and had, because I was so invested in the story and it’s continuation, started roleplaying as Dottie on instagram. It might sound silly, but I poured my heart into this interesting, entertaining character that had so little backstory yet so much potential and hidden depth. I took this as a challenge — I was going to explore what marvel hadn’t. So, this happened.
> 
> Like I mentioned, this was written quite some time ago. I haven’t edited it much – just read it through and removed typos and things like that, although some mistakes might be left. Don’t judge me too harshly.
> 
> I have saved some other writing and headcanons that I plan to upload in this series as soon as possible.
> 
> That being said, I hope you enjoyed this story.
> 
> love, avvie.


End file.
